


watch it begin again

by wekeepeachotherhuman



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-15
Updated: 2017-02-15
Packaged: 2018-09-24 18:13:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9778553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wekeepeachotherhuman/pseuds/wekeepeachotherhuman
Summary: On a recon mission, Black Squadron finds another defector from the First Order, who claims to know Finn and to have vital information on the First Order's plans after Starkiller.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is written for the 2017 Rogue Robin. This is phase one, and hopefully someone else will be continuing with this story in phase two. So if it does get completed, the second chapter won't be written by myself. If an artist claims this story and makes art for it, rather than adding a chapter, I'll probably continue with it myself and post a second part early spring. 
> 
> NOTE: the stormtrooper is my interpretation of who Kelly Marie Tran's character may be, so pls keep that in mind if you're a part of the Rogue Robin. (pls don't make her white)

Poe’s always been most comfortable elbow-deep in the mechanics of his X-Wing. He knows that starfighter better than he’s known just about anything in his life. He can fix it without even looking. He hears something wrong in its mechanics up in the air, he knows exactly what he’s got to do when he’s back on the ground. It’s therapeutic; quiet and calm once the adrenaline of battles or missions wears off. And it keeps pilots humble. You don’t do anything without thinking about your starfighter. 

The forests of hamogoni trees on Woteba are enormous and unfamiliar, enough to make you feel small, but when he’s in his X-Wing, Poe can trick himself into thinking he’s still on D’Qar, or back on Yavin IV. He’s here on a recon mission, along with the rest of Black Squadron. The First Order is here, just beyond the thick forests: wounded, but rebuilding and they’re here to see just how quickly. 

“Poe!” Jess’ voice breaks through the trees. She’d been out scavenging for more to eat. They were on the last leg of the mission and some supplies had depleted quicker than anticipated. Poe feels his blood run cold. She sounds panicked, uneasy. His hands stop working around the inside of his X-Wing and he turns, looking over his shoulder, towards her voice. And then he sees the white armour: the stormtrooper she’s dragging along with her, looking just as frantic as Jessika. “Dameron, whatever you’re doing, I guarantee that _this_ ,” she jostles the trooper for emphasis, “is more important.”

Poe can feel the rest of Black Squadron follow him approach Jessika. They’re cautious and defensive, same as Poe. He looks to his left, to Karé. She’s got her finger on the trigger of her blaster and she meets Poe’s gaze, waiting for an order. He holds his hand out to her, willing her to _relax, relax, relax_ , until he can get his own bearings and assess the situation. Because right now, he’s got no kriffin’ clue about how this is all about to go down. 

Jessika’s only a few feet away from them now. She pushes the trooper down onto their knees and points her blaster at the back of the girl’s head. And that’s when it finally dawns on Poe: she’s not wearing her helmet. Stormtroopers are never supposed to take off their helmets. Her black hair is pulled tightly into a bun at the back of her head. The trooper looks over her shoulder at Jessika, not even minding the blaster in her face. She looks shocked, in awe. Then she looks up at Poe and edges slightly forward. Behind him, Poe can sense Wexley bristling, he steps forward, his blaster ready. 

“Put the blasters away,” Poe tells them. He looks to Wexley who, for what won’t be the last time, looks like he might just disobey the order and shoot her anyway. But slowly, he lowers his blaster. Karé does the same. Jessika keeps her blaster pointed down at the trooper, but lets her hands relax, even minutely. “She’s not going anywhere.”

The trooper points up at Poe, still looking awed. “You’re the pilot,” she says. 

“We’re _all_ pilots,” Temmin punches back. 

“She knows Finn,” Jess says, quietly, only to Poe as if it’s supposed to only mean something to him. Poe feels his stomach tighten; he looks from Jess, down to the trooper and then back. 

Desperate for someone to listen, the trooper starts talking: “FN-2187.” And that drags Poe’s attention back down to her. “He defected and helped you escape in a TIE fighter.”

Poe’s thrown, lost in the flashing back adrenaline of that day, back-to-back with Finn for the first time, laying everything down on the line for a stranger and for whatever reason: necessity, desperation, or the Force, trusting that Finn was doing the same for him. 

“I recognize you from the _Finalizer_ ,” the trooper continues. And Poe doesn’t like that part of the memory as much. He suddenly doesn’t remember the immediate warmth of Finn at his back, but the frigid cruelty of the hard torture chair that had kept him upright for days. Behind the trooper, Jess steps forward, pressing the butt of her blaster against the trooper’s head. 

“You mention that ship again and I shoot you dead, you hear me?” she hisses, and the trooper shuts her eyes ‘cause Poe can see she’s not willing to call Pava’s bluff. 

“Jess,” Poe warns her. They both look at one another imploringly: one imploring discretion, the other, fierce protectiveness. When Jess doesn’t shoot, the trooper opens her eyes slowly and then seems more desperate than ever for them to just believe her and trust her. 

“You called him Finn,” she says, but it sounds more like a question. Poe looks down at the grass in front of him. He’d called him Finn, but Finn had given him so much more than what a name could symbolize: he’d given him hope and a fighting chance to keep doing what he was put into this galaxy to do. _To resist_. When Poe doesn’t immediately answer, she looks to Jess for an explanation. 

“He isn’t a number,” Jess says, sounding sincere enough that Poe half expects her to tack on: _and neither are you_ , but she stops dead, right there. 

“He’s with the Resistance now?” the trooper asks. She looks hopeful.

“He’s a Major,” Karé interjects, demanding respect even when Finn isn’t here to see it. 

The trooper nods. “I can help you.” She looks back at Poe, who hasn’t said much, but is really the only person that needs her convincing. “Like he did.”

“How?” Karé demands. 

The trooper looks her over, calculating just how quickly she might use the blaster in her hands. Then, either deciding she’s safe or that it’s worth the risk, she starts talking, right to Karé; military hierarchy doesn’t seem to matter as much with a blaster in your face. 

“I’m the trooper that got Kylo Ren off of Starkiller,” she says. “He’s trusted me enough to give me a front row seat to the rise of the First Order and keep quiet.” Poe steps forward. As much as he’d love for Kylo Ren to feel the betrayal of that trust, it almost seems too good to be true. That brings her attention to him. “You’re here to see how quickly the First Order is rebuilding after you blew up their big gun." She pauses, swallows hard. "Commander, I’m here telling you that the First Order isn’t rebuilding.” Poe feels his stomach drop, but he steels himself, keeping that reaction to himself. “They’re in for an upgrade.”

And then Poe feels like he might be sick. He remembers what it had felt like to have Kylo Ren in his head. He remembers the Hosnian System being wiped out in a matter of minutes. He turns on his heel, trying to keep his composure. An upgrade? What could be the step up from that kind of carnage?  
“Commander?” he hears the trooper say as he makes his way towards the only thing that seems familiar right now: his X-Wing.

“Put her on a fighter,” he says, hoping he’s loud enough for his squadron to hear him. He hears Jess call out to him, probably ready to say that he should reconsider, but he ignores her. “She’s coming to D’Qar.”

\--

Finn hasn’t been not good at something for a long time, but he’s definitively _not good_ at physical therapy. It’s long and frustrating and he’s “pushing himself too far too fast”, apparently. But there’s a war going on and he doesn’t want to let himself forget that. He can’t run as quick as he used to, but he can still do war. 

He’s worked himself up through the Resistance quickly. What he’d done on Starkiller helped. He’d woken up a war hero, uncertain of what to make of that, but relishing the way it put him in the middle of things: of negotiations, of strategic planning. This is where he thrives: behind the scenes, quiet and unassuming, until he can tear your operation down from the inside out. 

Rey’s been back from _Acho-To_ for a few weeks now. She’d brought Luke Skywalker with her. She’s stronger now, and Finn feels stronger having her here. He can sense her, always, feeding off of her power with the Force. He senses Luke too. Powerful, but so timid and gentle in person. He’s met Luke Skywalker, that’s something he can say now. And something he never thought would have been possible. 

He’d learned about Luke Skywalker in the First Order. From superiors when he was younger, who’d wanted to instill fear in him about what could happen if he ever chose rebellion. (Clearly, that scare tactic hadn’t really worked.) But mostly, he’d heard about Luke from other troopers; gossiping about their powerful leader’s uncle who could break Kylo Ren in an instant if he ever really tried. And these stories weren’t passed around to instill fear. In their own way, they were passed around as a sort of quiet hope. A hope for a life that didn’t include Kylo Ren and the First Order. 

He hadn’t been the first to consider defecting. He hadn’t been the first to have that consideration conditioned out of him. But he was a part of the small group of troopers who actually survived that act of rebellion. He almost hadn’t. He’d been convinced that Poe hadn’t. It had torn him apart. It had broke him, but that brokenness seems worth it now. Now that he’s as safe as a galactic war can allow him to be, and working towards a good cause; a cause he believes in. 

He feels at home for the first time that he’s ever remembered. For a boy without a family, finding a place that feels like home is as close to a success as he’ll get. He’s been looking for his parents. General Organa had even used Resistance manpower to help him, but any lead they came across died pretty quickly. He thinks that they must be dead. That’s how he’d been taken. They died trying to keep their hands on him. 

But he would feel that, wouldn’t he? He would feel the empty space that they would have left behind. Poe feels that empty space where his mother had been. Rey, too. But he doesn’t _feel_ it. 

He’s in his barracks, scouring over the demographics of a planet in the Corellian system. They’re not giving him too much. Not that he was particularly expecting them to. There’s a notification from his door. 

“Open,” he says over his shoulder. Expecting Rey, or maybe the General. He doesn’t get too many other visitors. The odd droid, here and there, from the medbay mostly. Just checking in on him. His door whooshes open. A pair of boots steps inside. So: not a droid. He turns in his seat, recognizes Captain Fushia from the various meetings he’s attended in the war room. 

“Major,” she says. She always looks stoic and serious, but today, there’s something else. She seems agitated, maybe a little uncertain. 

“Captain,” he responds back. 

“Black Squadron has returned from Woteba,” she tells him. _Poe_ , he thinks. 

“Status?” he asks her, trying to find a middle ground between giddy at their return and terrified that something terrible has happened.

“Full return,” Fushia says. Finn exhales. “But General Organa has requested your presence at the debriefing.”

“Me?” he asks, before he can reel his shock back in. Fushia nods, still all brass and military, so Finn stands, follows, ready to hear whatever order she might throw his way. Old habits die hard. 

His head starts working a mile a minute, going straight to worst-case scenarios. But he keeps telling himself: Poe is alive. Jess is alive. They’re all alive. And Fushia misses the turn towards the medbay, so they’re all more than alive, they’re healthy. 

“You mind filling me in a little bit?” Finn asks her as they approach the sliding door into the war room. “So I’m not walking in here blind.”

Fushia looks up at him, her jaw set. “I’m not really sure what’s going on, sir,” she says. 

“Oh,” Finn mutters. “It’s bad? This feels bad.”

Fushia puts her hand down on the palm reader. “Yes, sir,” she says. “It feels bad.”

The door whooshes open. Finn holds his breath. He looks out at the table. General Organa is standing, looking strong and in-charge. Poe’s sitting in the chair closest to her. He looks exhausted. But he smiles when he sees Finn, albeit, a little meekly. Across the table from him, there’s someone else. A girl. She looks familiar, but Finn can’t bring himself to wonder if he’d known her because the white armour of her stormtrooper uniform takes his breath away. 

Poe stands, and Finn still can’t take his eyes off the stormtrooper. Poe stands and beelines right towards him. He puts his hand on Finn’s elbow, gently looking for his attention. “Finn,” he tries softly. The stormtrooper finally looks away from him, down at her hands, and Finn can inhale again. “Finn, she wants to help us.” 

Finn looks at him, and Poe’s saying so much more than he’s letting on. He’s so sorry, for dragging this permanent reminder of who Finn had grown up surrounded by. He’s conflicted; he doesn’t trust her, but doesn’t want to imply that he hadn’t trusted Finn. 

“Help us how?” Finn asks, and he knows that this should be part of a larger conversation, that includes Leia Organa, but he can’t bring himself to look away from Poe. 

“I don’t know,” Poe says. He shakes his head. He looks defeated and so, so exhausted. “She has… Intelligence.”

“Do you trust her?” Finn asks. He studies Poe’s reaction. Everybody else in the room will be asked that same question, maybe not out loud, but everyone will have to answer to it. _Do we believe her?_ But Poe’s is the only one Finn really cares about. 

His eyes say _no_ , but out loud he mumbles: “I trusted you.” He shrugs and puts on the best smile he can muster. “That worked out pretty good for us.”

“Poe,” Finn starts again. 

“I want to,” Poe answers, cutting Finn off before he can ask again. “But this feels too easy. We don't get breaks like this. Not in my experience.”

Finn looks over Poe’s shoulder at the trooper. She meets his gaze. He suddenly realizes that he has to give an answer to that all-encompassing question as well: _does he believe her?_

“Let me talk to her,” he says, firmly, and this time, he isn’t just speaking to Poe Dameron, he’s speaking to the General.

 


End file.
